Commercial bait netting - yeah, right!
Back in history, commercial line fishers who predominantly targeted Spanish mackerel, used garfish for trolling baits. Fisheries Management introduced a special net endorsement (symbol) that allowed commercial mackerel fishers to ring-net gar using small mesh bait nets. This seemed perfectly reasonable and worked without drama for quite some years. But human beings being what they are, some commercial net fishers realized that they could also use these bait nets to catch more than just gar.
But it really went south in 2004 when Marine Park Zoning was introduced. Netters soon discovered an anomaly in the legislation that permitted commercial bait nets to be used in Marine Park Yellow Zones (closed to all other commercial netting).
Now here's the kicker - the definition of a commercial bait is - a net up to 400m long (600m south of Baffle Creek) with mesh between 12mm and 45mm, or 200m long with mesh between 25mm and 45mm in rivers and creeks. These nets can be set, or hauled or ringed at the pleasure of the operator. That's a net up to the length of 4 x football fields! Most people can't run that far.
We're now seeing this destructive net being used extensively in our tropical estuaries and foreshores to take just about everything that swims. And don't get too excited about net buyback schemes, because they do not buyback commercial bait net symbols, meaning that smart operators can sell their N1 and N2 symbols, but keep catching huge amounts of our inshore fish using their bait net symbol. Pretty cosy arrangement eh?
Both GBRMPA and FQ could fix this with the stroke of a pen, but to date have declined to address this ridiculous situation. It's very hard to beleive the rhetoric about sustainable fisheries management in this state when this sort of rort is there right under their noses and they are doing nothing about it.
But it really went south in 2004 when Marine Park Zoning was introduced. Netters soon discovered an anomaly in the legislation that permitted commercial bait nets to be used in Marine Park Yellow Zones (closed to all other commercial netting).
Now here's the kicker - the definition of a commercial bait is - a net up to 400m long (600m south of Baffle Creek) with mesh between 12mm and 45mm, or 200m long with mesh between 25mm and 45mm in rivers and creeks. These nets can be set, or hauled or ringed at the pleasure of the operator. That's a net up to the length of 4 x football fields! Most people can't run that far.
We're now seeing this destructive net being used extensively in our tropical estuaries and foreshores to take just about everything that swims. And don't get too excited about net buyback schemes, because they do not buyback commercial bait net symbols, meaning that smart operators can sell their N1 and N2 symbols, but keep catching huge amounts of our inshore fish using their bait net symbol. Pretty cosy arrangement eh?
Both GBRMPA and FQ could fix this with the stroke of a pen, but to date have declined to address this ridiculous situation. It's very hard to beleive the rhetoric about sustainable fisheries management in this state when this sort of rort is there right under their noses and they are doing nothing about it.
